Halftime impressions: awful

The SU football team is doing a decent job of limiting South Florida QB Matt Grothe's ability to run the ball. Patrick Shadle has a career-long 50-yard field goal.

That's the good news at halftime here. All of it.

On the flip side, SU has three turnovers, one on the opening kickoff that led to a quick USF TD. It cannot run the ball, It cannot protect QB Adrian Dantley. SU's first drive, a decent one, was short-circuited by an illegal chop block that made first-and-10 deep in USF territory first-and-25. Its next possession was also first-and-25 after consecutive holding and illegal procedure penalties.

Defensively, SU cannot stop the run. Its defensive backs are playing 15 yards off the ball, as they did last season against USF, allowing Grothe to complete underneath passes at will. SU had to take one timeout because it had 12 men on the field. It was penalized another time for having 12 men on the field (USF was holding on the play, and the penalties negated each other).

The score is "only" 20-3 at the half, which fails to accurately reflect how totally a USF team that has lost three consecutive games is dominating, especially up front. USF is averaging nearly 9 yards per carry; SU has rushed for 2 yards. USF's Aston Samuels has rushed two times for 101 yards. SU has 133 yards of total offense. The only time a decent crowd got loud the entire half was when Larry Csonka was introduced.